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[00:00:00] Christie Robertson: Welcome to Seattle Hall Pass, a podcast with news and conversation about Seattle Public Schools. I'm Christie Robertson.

[00:00:14] Jane Tunks Demel: And I'm Jane Tunks Demel. 

[00:00:16] Christie Robertson: Today we're talking about the lists. There is a list. In fact, there are two lists. We have two options for school closures and a lot of information following a long period of no information. So rather refreshing.

[00:00:33] Jane Tunks Demel: We're guessing that you've all probably heard already which schools are closing, and especially if they're affecting your neighborhoods or your families. And so what we hope to do is just dig in and share some overall trends that we've noticed and provide other context.

[00:00:48] Christie Robertson: So as you know, the district has said they're going to release a list of 20 schools to close. And there are two options, and the district is calling them option A and option B. And in reality, the two options are not actually that different.

[00:01:03] Jane Tunks Demel: One option is closing 21 schools, and the other option is closing 17 schools. And for the 17-school option, the district will also have to “reduce the budget using other strategies, including staffing reductions.”

[00:01:20] Christie Robertson: And the main difference between the two of them, which I think is substantive, is whether or not the district will have any option schools or any K-8 schools at all. Option A gets rid of all K-8s. And we'll have no option schools. Option B keeps one K-8 option school in each region. So five K-8s.

[00:01:41] Jane Tunks Demel: There are five option schools that will become attendance area schools, no matter what happens, at least according to these two models. And all of these are in the North End. They are John Stanford and McDonald International. Both of which are dual language immersion schools. Also two schools that focus on project-based learning, Thornton Creek and Queen Anne Elementary. And finally, the fifth school to become a neighborhood school is Cascadia, which has been serving the highly capable cohort. So all the boundaries will be redrawn in those neighborhoods.

[00:02:17] Christie Robertson: In both options, the highly capable cohort schools are going away. Which is big news because initially the promise had been to those families that they could stay in the cohort schools until their kids graduated.

[00:02:30] Jane Tunks Demel: Although it did say in the FAQ that the students who are currently in the cohort will be able to finish through 5th grade. 

[00:02:37] Christie Robertson: Which is very confusing because how is there a cohort if they become neighborhood schools?

[00:02:43] Jane Tunks Demel: Similarly, there's a lot of questions about where students who are medically fragile and also students who are deaf and hard of hearing will go. There's currently only one school serving the deaf and hard of hearing community and that's TOPS, which is a K-8 that may or may not close. 

And there are three medically fragile programs. Two of them are at schools that will close in both models. That's Green Lake and Orca K-8. We've heard a lot of questions from community about where these medically fragile students will be placed.

[00:03:15] Christie Robertson: Yeah, in the case that they close all of the K-8s and TOPS [also] closes, I do not understand what would happen to the Deaf and Hard of Hearing program because as somebody from the community pointed out, you don't want that distributed to all the neighborhood schools because you need a big enough group of kids to have a program like that.

[00:03:37] Jane Tunks Demel: And then the other special program that we're wondering about is the dual language immersion program. There's a handful of schools in Seattle Public Schools that have dual language immersion, and those would all become neighborhood schools. And it's unclear what that means for the dual language immersion program.

We already mentioned John Stanford and McDonald, which are option schools, which you have to enter a lottery to get in.

But there's also three neighborhood dual language schools: Beacon Hill, Concord, and Dearborn Park. For those schools, the intention is to serve students who live within the attendance area.

Marnie Campbell was at a Seattle Council PTSA meeting earlier this week, 

[00:04:19] Christie Robertson: And Marnie Campbell is the SPS administrator who's in charge of the whole well-resourced schools program. 

[00:04:25] Jane Tunks Demel: And she didn't say anything directly, but to me it sounded like they really want to lean into having dual language immersion in neighborhood schools.

[00:04:35] Christie Robertson: They've made a lot of noise about their commitment to dual language immersion, but it's always been very vague about what will happen in the short term to the current dual language immersion programs and what they say on their criteria and data page is “Please note, we recognize the value of DLI programs in building on the brilliance of our multilingual learners and plan to expand access to these programs in our neighborhood schools.”

That's what it says on the data and criteria page, which has a lot of more detail about their reasoning about each of the decisions.

I know that they want to change it so that the commitment is to heritage speakers to have dual language access rather than to just have it be accessible to whoever. 

[00:05:23] Jane Tunks Demel: We've known for years that the current school board majority has wanted to limit option schools, and that's reflected in both option A and option B. 

Christie, that's a lot of options.

[00:05:34] Christie Robertson: Option A and option B?

[00:05:36] Jane Tunks Demel: And option schools.

[00:05:37] Christie Robertson: Oh, yeah. 

[00:05:38] Jane Tunks Demel: So that's the basic difference. Option A shuts down all the option schools and turns some of them into neighborhood schools, and option B retains one K-8 option school in each of the five regions.

[00:05:54] Christie Robertson: Communities at option schools who have long wait lists have been wondering for a long time if this means their schools are going to close. And I would say in general, that seems to be the case. 

[00:06:03] Jane Tunks Demel: And the district explained why so many option schools were closing on the website. 

[00:06:08] Christie Robertson: Yeah. What the district says about why option schools are a target is that they've historically provided capacity relief for overcrowded schools and that today they draw enrollment and resources from neighborhood schools.

[00:06:22] Jane Tunks Demel: They draw enrollment and resources away from neighborhood schools? Is that what they mean?

Yes. And then they also say that option and neighborhood schools both develop unique instructional models. Okay, hold on, Christie do you know of any neighborhood schools that have a unique instructional model?

[00:06:42] Christie Robertson: Not off the top of my head.

[00:06:43] Jane Tunks Demel: Okay, listeners, anyone out there, please send us what unique instructional models your K-5 school has. 

[00:06:50] Christie Robertson: And then also they say that option schools disproportionately serve students who have traditionally had additional access to additional educational resources. 

And then the last thing is that most option schools serve a smaller proportion of students who are eligible for free and reduced school meals compared to the demographics of their geographical zone. And I've heard mixed reports on how often that's true.

[00:07:15] Jane Tunks Demel: Seattle Public Schools actually did an analysis based on data from October 2020, which granted, was during distance learning during Covid. It was actually a racial analysis and it didn't mention free and reduced lunch. 

But the goal was to gain a better understanding of the difference of demographics between the options of schools and their surrounding neighborhoods. 

Anyway, the results were mixed. In the Northeast, Southwest, and Central regions, the option schools they looked at actually did have more white students than their surrounding neighborhoods. But in the Northwest three out of the four option schools had fewer white students and more multiracial and Latino students, then their geozones. And then the Southeast two out of three options, schools had fewer Asian and Latino students but more Black and multiracial students and their surrounding geozones.

[00:08:09] Christie Robertson: We'll put a link to that study in the show notes. But those are the concerns that Seattle Public Schools outlined. And I don't know that any of those problems would be solved by option B, where they still have an option school in each zone. 

Okay. So back to the list of school closures. It sounds like the following schools are very likely to close since they're on both lists. In the Northwest, that's Licton Springs and Broadview-Thomson, which are both K-8s. Also North Beach, which is a K-5. In the Northeast, Green Lake, Decatur, which is an HCC [highly capable cohort] school, Cedar Park, which is an option school, and Laurelhurst, which is a neighborhood school.

[00:08:55] Jane Tunks Demel: In the central region, Catherine Blaine, which is a K-8, John Hay, McGilvra, and Stevens, which are K-5s, 

[00:09:07] Christie Robertson: And then in the Southeast, Orca, which is an option K-8, Graham Hill, and Rainier View, which are both neighborhood schools.

[00:09:14] Jane Tunks Demel: And in the Southwest region, which is mostly West Seattle, Louisa Boren, a STEM K-8 option school is closing, and also Sanislo, which is a very small K-5. 

[00:09:28] Christie Robertson: Another thing to note is that they include a table of school size and something that jumps out really starkly is that the number of elementary schools that are more than 500 students goes from one currently, and in option A and option B, there would be 13 and 10 respectively. So going from one 500-plus to 13 500-plus, that is a really big change. 

[00:10:01] Jane Tunks Demel: And Christie, do they explain what they think these 500-student schools will be like? 

[00:10:08] Christie Robertson: In the criteria and data page SPS spells out what a well resourced school actually is. Now they've really kind of narrowed it down. Well resourced schools serve preschool and special education intensive students. So they define it as three full-size classrooms dedicated for special education intensive services and two full-size classrooms for preschool. And they also say something about inclusive learning, I think they're saying that because the emphasis on rooms rubs people getting special ed services the wrong way because special education should be a service and not a room. And then they say that in these well-resourced schools, classroom capacity is calculated at 26 students for K-3 and 28 for 4th and 5th grade. So they're not planning to, with these changes to overload the classrooms.

I want to add a recommendation for people to look at the criteria and data page because there's a lot of interesting insight into their planning and they've done a lot of analysis to try to make sure that they're being equitable. And it's pretty interesting to see. 

For example, they point out that in the current state, 66% of students with intensive IEP services cannot attend their neighborhood schools. So this change, that's a really big deal that this would mean that kids could go to their neighborhood schools. 

And then they outline for each of the options, the number of students, the student enrollment, and the average number of students per building for each of options A and B.

And then they make sure that demographics of students that are attending schools proposed for closure or for boundary changes are not disproportionately on the backs of students furthest from educational justice. 

[00:12:15] Jane Tunks Demel: And that's because it's been shown in studies that school closures tend to disproportionately impact disadvantaged kids and they want to make sure they're not doing that.

Because as we know, it is shown that school closures do negatively affect student outcomes.

[00:12:33] Christie Robertson: So then the last thing that's up on the district's website is detailed maps of the boundary changes in each of the options. So you can dig into your area and find out where you would be zoned in each of the scenarios for elementary schools. It doesn't go into middle and high schools. 

[00:12:52] Jane Tunks Demel: Several of the maps, especially in West Seattle are nearly identical to redlining maps. Dahlia Bazzaz from the Seattle Times did an amazing article on school segregation in Seattle in 2023, and we'll link to that in the show notes. And she talks about in this article, how, especially in West Seattle, there are some boundaries along 35th Avenue, and those attendance area boundaries duplicate those redlining boundaries. And Christie and I were hoping that the school district would be able to take the opportunity to encourage more integration as they redrew these boundaries, but it looks, at least in West Seattle, like they didn't. 

So that West Seattle Elementary, which is 66% Black, is right next to Gatewood Elementary, which is 4% Black. And the only thing separating them is 35th Avenue, which is the same street where the redlining boundary was. 

And then there's Roxhill, which is 32% Black and 24% white. Next to Arbor Heights, which is 3.5% Black and 63% white.

I mean, these are some stark differences. 

[00:14:17] Christie Robertson: It's obviously super difficult to combat segregation of schools, which is also tied to housing segregation. And one of the opportunities that's been spelled out by some groups is that shifting school boundaries just even a little bit so that they cross the traditional red lines. So this is the kind of opportunity for doing something like that. And I'm curious about why they didn't do that. Because when they had been asked about it during the planning process, they seemed to be intending to do that.

[00:14:53] Jane Tunks Demel: So we invite you all to look at these maps in detail. They're fascinating. You can see all the different boundary changes for both option A and option B. And what I notice is the North End, even if your neighborhood school stays open, it seems like boundary changes might be highly likely.

[00:15:15] Christie Robertson: Yes, I think that's pretty much mostly redrawn all the boundaries. So even if your school was not on the list of schools that we listed, it's very likely that you could be impacted by these changes. So take a look at the maps.

Just to get into some of the details of individual schools: Three schools that close only an option A and not an option B are Sacajawea, Dunlap and Lafayette. Those are some really tight knit neighborhoods that are probably feeling really on edge right now.

[00:15:51] Jane Tunks Demel: And my neighborhood school is Sacajawea, actually — though my students won't be affected by this boundary redrawing or school closure because they will be in middle and high school. But it's really interesting because Sacajawea has been on the list to be rebuilt, and it was supposed to be in the next levy, which is coming in February. And so they've already commissioned the new design from an architectural firm of a 500-student school on the Sacajawea site. 

And now when you look at these boundary redrawings, what they're actually doing is they're making the attendance area even smaller than it is now, and now we have 200 students. So everyone's really wondering, what's going on here? Is this really an option? Is this just for show? If they keep it open, will they rebuild the school or not? The school is in extremely bad condition, and needs to be rebuilt. 

[00:17:00] Christie Robertson: We also have heard from some of our listeners that capacity numbers make things very confusing as to whether schools will really have the capacity to absorb all the students that they're slated to absorb. With one example, being Emerson, Dunlap, and MLK, which would be absorbing students from other schools in option B.

It'll be interesting to see what comes out in testimony at the next school board meeting on September 18th and sign up for that testimony is on Monday. 

[00:17:28] Jane Tunks Demel: On September 24th, Seattle Public Schools will have an online information session to provide an overview of both options, and from September 25th to October 8th, there will be in-person meetings in each region for your family, staff, and community.

There will also be separate staff meetings. 

[00:17:47] Christie Robertson: One more thing we wanted to let folks know is that principals have been strictly instructed not to talk in any specifics about their individual schools and have been instructed to refer all questions to the central effort, at risk of their jobs. So if your principals seem reticent, that's why.

For each individual school in the preliminary plan that the superintendent will present to the board, each of those schools will have to have a hearing at their school.

And that's one thing that's really interesting to me. I was pretty happy to see that they did develop two options, but only one of those options is going to come before the board. And so I wonder how they're going to determine which of those options The board isn't choosing between these options. The district is choosing which one to present to the board.

[00:18:18] Jane Tunks Demel: If your school is on one of the lists, or if you have other thoughts about these options, send us a voice memo at speak.seattlehallpass.Org or email us at hello@seattlehallpass.org, and we'll feature some of your comments on a future podcast. 

[00:18:34] Christie Robertson: And that concludes this episode of Seattle Hall Pass. Thanks for listening, and you can find our show notes at SeattleHallPass. org. You can donate to our efforts also at our website. I'm Christie Robertson.

[00:18:48] Jane Tunks Demel: And I'm Jane Tunks Demel. Thanks for listening to Seattle Hall Pass.